2018/2019 Season Structure Amendments

At the beginning of the 2018/19 season it was announced that the European Qualifier Tournament (EQT) and British Quidditch Cup (BQC) would use a Swiss system on day 1, followed by bracket play on day 2. Additionally, it was announced that BQC would be seeded using an algorithm with results from QuidditchUK Events and Accredited Events feeding into the rankings.

Following a post-regionals review, EQT will now use a 3-pool 4-team round robin structure on Day 1, with a seeded bracket on Day 2 including playoffs for D1 and D2 EQC spots. BQC will use an 8-pool 4-team round robin structure on Day 1, with a standard seeded single-elimination bracket.

EQT pool seeding will use the rankings determined via playoffs at regionals. BQC seeding for the 12 teams attending EQT will be determined by the final rankings of that tournament. The remaining seeding for BQC will be determined by final ranking at regionals.

Reasons for the change

In the interests of transparency, QuidditchUK would like to take this opportunity to explain the reasonings behind these changes.

A Swiss system requires pairings between teams to be drawn after each full round of games based on their record in the tournament so far. This means that only the first round of matches can be determined (for both teams and match officials) in advance of the tournament and that all other scheduling must be done live.

Based on feedback from the regionals organising committee, QuidditchUK believes that it is not feasible to complete team and match official scheduling to an appropriate standard within the time constraints of the tournament schedule. Additionally, without a sophisticated notification system (such as the SMS-based technology used by USQ), the difficulty of informing all match officials and teams of their allocations is likely to prove insurmountable.

By contrast to the Swiss system, pool play allows for all matches and match officials for Day 1 to be scheduled ahead of the event, providing the maximum notice of volunteering and playing slots for both officials and teams. Criticism of the pool-and-bracket system in previous years has centred largely around unbalanced seeding due to the use of regionals results, which will be mitigated by the use of EQT results to seed the top 12 teams.

Tournament committees

These conservative predictions of event management capacity are based on the unprecedentedly low number of tournament committee applicants for regionals 2018. In total, only 3 volunteers were recruited across both regionals who did not already volunteer for QuidditchUK in some capacity.

The role of the tournament committee is often paramount to ensuring the successful delivery of a tournament and, although the efforts of volunteers who did not initially sign up to participate in tournament has not gone unnoticed, it meant that in some cases, existing QuidditchUK staff were diverted away from their usual roles.

To ensure that QuidditchUK can continue to deliver a high calibre of tournament, we welcome applications for EQT and BQC tournament committee positions, which can be found at www.quidditchuk.org/volunteer

Accredited Events

To adapt to increased demand for the support of existing QuidditchUK volunteers during Regionals 2018, the development of the Accredited Events system has been temporarily put on hold.

This decision was not made lightly and results from the belief that introducing Accredited Events at such short notice before BQC and expect teams to arrange high-quality events to guarantee their seeding would be both unfair and unfeasible.

However, it is important to note that QuidditchUK are dedicated to ensuring that this system is realised ready for the 2019/2020 season as feedback from teams was largely positive about the proposed idea.

By revising the launch date, the quality of the programme and integrity of BQC 2019 seeding can take priority to ensure that all interested parties benefit as much as possible.

If you would like to volunteer with the Events Department to help develop the Accredited Events system, please visit www.quidditchuk.org/volunteer